by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)
South of the Line, inland from far...
Language: English
South of the Line, [inland]1 from far Durban, A mouldering soldier lies - your countryman. Awry and doubled up are his gray bones, And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified, Was ruled to be inept, and set aside? And what of logic or of truth appears In tacking "Anno domini" to the years? Near twenty-hundred liveried thus have hied, But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."
About the headline (FAQ)
View original text (without footnotes)1 omitted by Joubert.
Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), first published 1899 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Garth Baxter (b. 1946), "Coda (A Christmas Ghost-Story)" [ satb chorus and piano ], from The Battle Cry, no. 6 [sung text checked 1 time]
- by John Pierre Herman Joubert (1927 - 2019), "A Christmas Ghost-Story", op. 109 no. 5 (1985), from South of the Line, no. 5 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this page: Garth Baxter
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 91